For this week’s Buildings Focus, Agriland made the trip south to Co. Cork to visit an eight-unit parlour on a farm that is new to dairy.
The family team that is parents John and Eileen Hurley and son William, residing in Derrynagasha, first flirted with the idea of going into milk in 2016.
Once they decided that was the path forward for the farm, the have gradually, bit by bit, been setting up the farm to convert to dairy, having run a successful beef operation prior to that.
However, the farm was no stranger to dairy cows, with John’s father, also named William, having hand-milked cows on the very spot where the new milking parlour resides today.
Speaking to Agriland, John and Eileen said: “We were, prior to the move to dairy, running a suckler and calf-to-beef system.
“We had, at our peak, up on 60 suckler cows and then we would buy in dairy calves from a neighbour dairy farmer and bring them to finish.
“However, William was doing a fair share of relief milking and enjoyed it.
“We all sat down together and looked at what we had and saw ourselves being able to work it and set up the farm to dairy, which the three of us would be involved in.
“We had already been reseeding every year before we made the changeover and from there, bit by bit, we got the ball rolling on making the changeover.”
The site
The site that the new parlour was erected on was, in its latter used, used as a storage area on the farm.
It consisted of a number of outbuildings, some of which are still there today.
The site wasn’t seen by many as the right location on the farm to have the parlour.
However, the Hurleys felt it was; with William being a qualified engineer – and working full-time as a process engineer for the renowned Johnson & Johnson in Cork city – he, along with John and Eileen, was able to visualise the dairy unit here.
William drew up all the drawings for the parlour and associated collecting yard and holding area. From his time doing relief milking on farms, he was able to bring home ideas from these farms that he felt could suit his own at home.
The Hurleys also sought help and advice from Teagasc’s Mark O’Sullivan throughout the process of the move to dairy.
In 2017, the first bit of work was carried out. It involved covering the old yard, bringing it up the required level – which required a lot of fill – and putting in a slatted tank. The Hurleys got Brendan Bouce Plant Hire to aid them with completion of this work.
The building of the shed for the parlour began in 2020. The steelwork was completed by Jerome Keohane Engineering, with John Keohane also supporting any issues that came up throughout the build.
All other works including the shed cladding, all concrete work and plastering was completed by the Hurleys.
The parlour
In 2019, they set out to find a milking parlour that suited their goals. The following spring, 60 high economic breeding index (EBI) dairy heifers were set to be arriving on the farm.
Many farmers who are thinking about buying a parlour shop around and the Hurleys were no different.
However, a chat with Paul Kingston of Boumatic Gascoigne Melotte at the National Ploughing Championships in 2019 set in motion the start of the family’s dealings with the Laois-based company.
William had milked on farms that had a Boumatic parlour and found them easy to operate and work with, and so he was happy to go ahead with the brand as the family’s parlour.
In August 2021, the new parlour was fitted by Cork-based dealer Shane Jennings. The electrical work was carried out by Donal Og O’Laoire and Michael White Pumps of Bandon completed the plumbing.
Looking at the parlour itself, the Hurleys installed eight units but have room to increase it to 18 if they so wish.
The parlour is kitted out with automatic cluster removers, an auto-wash system and GMI+ milk yield indicators.
The Cork natives went with the an air-star vacuum-pump system – which during milking enables a calm and quiet environment for cows to be milked in and also a variable-speed milk pump as well, to help keep the electrical bill down.
Also installed was a batch feeding system with cows having access to their own individual troughs, while operator control from the pit is enhanced with the help of the Tombstone Head-Hold system. John and William have said that this has been a great addition.
The flow of cows in and out of the parlour is further controlled with the aid of guillotine gates at both ends, with an air gate control box located in the pit to operate the gates.
At either end of the parlour, the Hurleys put their own touch to on the build by incorporating sliding doors where cows enter and exit.
To accompany the milking parlour was a 10,000L Liscarroll bulk tank.
In the picture (below) you can see two drainage points.
The idea of the second point, furthest away from the bulk tank, is that if the Hurleys ever installed a bigger bulk tank that this drain would be able to serve the bigger tank as it would naturally extend out further.
Elsewhere within the build a plant and bulk tank room, wash area, an office and a toilet can be found.
All of these areas were built by the Hurleys with all the doors and windows sourced second hand.
An 8t meal bin was also sourced to service the parlour.
Reusing water to wash down the parlour
One phrase that kept coming back into the conversation when speaking with the Hurleys was “doing our bit for the environment”.
This ethos be seen from the second you drive down the lane to the farm as hedgerows are planted in the paddocks.
However, in the milking parlour, the Hurleys are making sure no water is being wasted by reusing the water used to wash the parlour.
They do this by implementing one of William’s ideas; once they wash down the parlour, the water makes its way down towards the rear of the parlour where a pump – which can be turned on with a flick of a switch – pumps and directs this water up to a tank at the front of the building.
Also at the tank, water from the gutters is collected, filtered and directed into this tank where it is reused to wash the parlour again, as well as the collecting yard and holding pen.
The only fresh clean water that is used is for the cleaning of the milking machine.
The collecting yard
Just outside the parlour, a collecting yard you don’t see very often farms was designed.
It’s a circular yard that the Hurleys said aids with cow flow into the parlour, as the cows don’t have to make any sharp turns into the yard.
The entire yard is grooved to avoid any cows from possibly slipping.
However, the most standout feature here is the way in which the Hurleys can wash down the yard easily and quickly.
Eileen said that she does all the washing up after milking and to make her life easier, William designed the hose to clean out the yard in a way that took the ‘pulling and dragging’ out of it.
William designed it so that the hose can swing around the entire breadth of the holding pen and collecting yard, where it reaches out to the edges of the yard. A separate, easy-to-operate hose is also at the top of the yard where cows exit the parlour.
Eileen said it was a “genius” design by William and said it really makes her life so much easier.
The handling and holding area
The handling area also has some nice features that make it that little bit different.
In this area is the crush, which doubles up as the entry and exit point into the collecting yard and back out to pasture again. As you can see (below), the gates are interchangeable for whatever use they may be needed for.
The Hurleys incorporated a stepped walkway along the crush that they can stand on if they are handling cattle in the crush.
However, halfway up, one section of the stepped walkway was left out. John said this was done so that if a cow was to be drafted out, she wouldn’t have to lift herself over the step into the holding area.
This holding pen is grooved and could double up as a large collecting yard if the Cork natives were to increase cow numbers in a substantial way, although it is unlikely as the collecting yard they have already is quite big.
The crush is used twice a day by cows making their way to the collecting yard for milking and back out again if they are going out to the main grazing block, so it can get quite dirty quickly.
In order to keep this clean, water from the aforementioned sump is split into two, the dirty water coming from the pit floor is pumped out through a small pipe (seen below) at the top of the crush which flushes water down, cleaning it, and then flows into the tank at the collecting yard.
John said that if the crush was extremely dirty he would go along with a brush but in general, the water keeps its clean.
Safety
A safety element incorporated into the build was that of slip through points in various locations around the yard.
These are becoming very common on farms – and for good reason.
Delighted with the move
The Hurleys wished to thank everyone involved with helping them get to where they are today, including their other sons, Padraig – a chartered accountant in Dublin – for his help on the financial side and John and Cathal who were on hand to help when needed.
The Hurleys did a substantial amount of the work themselves, which William said helped to save money for other areas they could invest in building the parlour.
“We are very happy with our new enterprise,” they told Agriland.
“The transition to dairy was gradual and every inch of the build is done to the standard that we wanted it to be.
“We didn’t want to rush any step of it and we wanted to be able to do as much of the work ourselves and really put our own stamp on it.
“We are very grateful to everyone who gave us advice and carried out work on the build.
“We milked 60 cows this year and we have 10 in-calf heifers coming along this year which will see us go to 70 cows next year – hopefully,” they continued.
“We have no desire in going into big numbers as we feel if done right, the smaller dairy farm can be as profitable as any.”
Looking to the future, William is completing his Green Cert online through Kildalton College with the intention of increasing the units in the parlour to 16, with the hope that he will be able to qualify for a 60% grant.
